Everyone knows that fruits and vegetables are great for your health, so the idea of juicing might seem appealing. It’s been a popular weight-loss strategy for decades. People may switch a meal with juice or do a total juice cleanse for several days. You can make it fit your lifestyle, but are there any side effects to juicing you should know about?

Read these eight side effects of juicing to determine if it’s the right choice for your health needs. Once you learn the pros and cons, you’ll know if you should start juicing to feel better or lose weight without depending on expensive diet products and supplements:

1. Immediate Weight Loss

You can see one of the most predictable side effects to juicing on your bathroom scale. Even if you only replace one meal each day with your latest juice recipe, you’ll cut calories and begin a calorie deficit. Instead of eating cheeseburgers, pizzas or sandwiches, you’ll replace those processed foods and calories with fresh, water-based juices.

Juicing causes immediate weight loss because it creates a calorie deficit that causes the body to burn extra fat for energy. As these fat-storing cells empty, you’ll also lose water weight and notice that you don’t feel bloated anymore.

This side effect of juicing becomes most apparent when you DIY or purchase only expeller-pressed juices with no sugar added. Many juices lining your grocer’s shelves come from concentrate, and manufacturers may add a ton of the sweet stuff, increasing your Type 2 diabetes risk and contributing to weight gain.

2. Frequent Bathroom Breaks

People often believe they won’t have to worry about their fiber intake if they juice fruits and vegetables because they’re naturally high in fiber. This would be true if you make smoothies, but juicing removes the solid parts of the fruit that contain the fiber. Fiber draws water to your colon, adding bulk to your stools and making the go easier. 

Most fruits and vegetables contain fiber in their peels, which get left behind in juicing machines. Without fiber in your diet, you’ll experience more frequent bathroom breaks and uncomfortable bowel movements. Fortunately, you can combat this side effect of juicing by consuming plenty of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables during meals that consist of more than your favorite liquid concoction. 

However, juicing may also improve your hydration levels. While you’ll make more frequent bathroom runs when you get plenty of fluids, dehydration can harm your kidneys and cause a host of adverse health symptoms, including nausea, headaches and fatigue. Juicing may be one way to encourage more frequent sipping if you don’t enjoy the taste of plain water much — even adding a few fruit slices to your pitcher enhances flavor. 

3. Additional Nutrient Intake

If your standard diet centered around processed, starchy foods, you likely weren’t getting the nutrients your body needed. Boxed meals and pastries don’t have the antioxidants, vitamins and minerals found in vegetables and fruits. By leaving these foods behind, you’ll immediately improve your nutrition by relying on juice instead.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are powerhouses of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals essential for good health. Juicing keeps these nutrients intact, removing only the starch. Other substances, which may help your body use these nutrients more efficiently than supplements alone, remain intact. 

4. Intense Daily Lethargy

While you can find vegetables with protein, they won’t be as protein-dense as a serving of meat, fish or beans. Relying solely on juice with no add-ins will make you feel lethargic. Your body needs protein to fuel your metabolism and give you lasting energy as it breaks down the protein. 

An easy way to prevent feeling sleepy or exhausted is to add protein powder to your juice. Although people sometimes wonder if it’s healthy, it can be a great supplement when your diet lacks natural protein. Follow the serving size directions and it will boost your metabolism during your juice cleanse.

5. Disease Protection and Prevention

As you drink more all-natural juice, you’ll prevent yourself from developing diseases. It’s one of the unknown side effects of juicing that can make the most significant impact on your future. When you juice something like blueberries, they’ll boost your microbiome and digestive tract so you don’t develop gastrointestinal issues typically associated with a bad diet.

You can also fight generational diseases by juicing. Yellow and orange vegetables lower your breast cancer risk when you eat more than two and a half servings per day. Juicing is an easy way to increase your vegetable intake to protect your health without requiring more cooking.

6. Formation of Eating Disorders

After you start juicing, you might feel less inclined to switch back to a solid food diet if you want to continue losing weight. The instant gratification of losing water weight and seeing the scale go down every morning can cause people to develop eating disorders that keep them from the food their body needs.

Even though you’ll get some nutrients from juicing, whole foods can promote your weight loss in healthier ways. Forget about complicated recipes where you measure macro and micronutrients. Instead, you can make something as simple as oatmeal to speed up your metabolism without starving your body of the food it needs to function correctly.

One tip that may help you avoid forming an eating disorder from your juicing regimen is to track your intake. Your system for doing so need not be complex. It may look like nothing more than a checkmark in your planner. Strive to replace no more than one meal per day or engage in one full day of juice fasting per week. Keeping track reminds you that it’s crucial to also consume whole foods and serves as an alarm if you taking your healthy new habit to unhealthy extremes. 

7. Weight Loss Plateau 

After starting your juicing journey, you’ll likely lose a few pounds due to the new calorie deficit. After a few days or weeks, your body will think you’re starving to death because it’s not getting the calories it needs, so you might hit a plateau.

Instead of burning fat for energy, this unwanted side effect of juicing will slow down your metabolism and bodily functions to conserve energy. If you were genuinely starving, it would help you live longer. When you switch back to solid foods, your body might store the calories to help you avoid starving again.

Plateauing and even gaining weight after juicing is common for people who don’t ensure they get the calories their bodies need for daily functions.

Track Your Experience With the Side Effects of Juicing

Most of the side effects of juicing occur gradually over time. Tracking your experience is the best way to guarantee you’re getting all the pros and none of the cons of juicing. Record your meals, energy levels and daily thoughts while you juice and reflect on them after a few days or a week to figure out if it’s right for you.

You can also talk with your doctor if you have concerns about juicing interfering with your medications or existing health conditions.

Originally published October 15, 2020. Updated September 30, 2024.